Dead of the Night
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: 9th story in Ramble On series. Sam tries to halt a raging infection and Dean struggles against nightmares after a werewolf hunt goes slightly sideways. No slash. No spoilers.


**Dead of the Night**

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><p>The cabin stood on the edge of the woodland, a few miles from the local highway. Sam had found it by chance. He'd carried Dean in, and cleaned up the wounds as much as he could, but he knew now that it hadn't been good enough. Ugly red streaks were showing from under the bandages and they were swelling. He needed to find something to get rid of the infection in a hurry.<p>

Lifting the old-fashioned iron kettle from the fire, he carried it over to the table. He'd boiled several bandages now and his fingers were raw and red from handling the hot cloth. From the other room, he could hear Dean's low moans. The fever wasn't breaking. His brother's delirium was bringing up the past, he knew. Bringing it up in inescapable nightmares that'd kept Dean moving restlessly for the last few hours. Leaving the boiled bandages in the kettle, he grabbed one of the cut-up pieces of his towel from the bucket of cold water sitting under the table and hurried through the connecting door.

Dean lay on the narrow cot, his skin flushed and beaded with sweat, the pillow beneath his head soaked through. The first attack had caught his brother over his shoulder, four long, deep gaping wounds, filled with dirt from the werewolf's claws. It'd taken Sam a long time to irrigate the filth from them and despite the final sluicing of clear alcohol down their lengths, he wasn't sure that he'd gotten every speck out. But they were pink and had finally stopping bleeding. It was the punctures from the second attack that were worrying him. They'd gone deep into Dean's side, between the ribs and hip bone.

Sam lifted the edge of the bandage, his face twisting up as he saw how quickly the infection had progressed; the wounds were filling with yellow pus, the flesh around them swelling.

"Hang in there, Dean. I won't be long." Sam whispered to his brother. Reaching out, his fingers brushed Dean's temple, eyes closing as he felt the heat radiating from the skin under them. He'd done everything he could to get those ugly, puckered holes cleaned out, but they were too deep, and it was obvious that his attempts had failed. He laid the cool cloth over Dean's forehead, forcing himself to ignore the wild flinch, holding it there until some of the heat dissipated and Dean's movements began to slow.

"Sam …" Dean's voice was barely a breath, a whisper of his name that sent a sepulchral shiver down his back.

"Dean, I'm here," he whispered back, taking his brother's hand and holding it tightly, wondering if he could even feel it.

"Sam!" Dean grunted, his head whipping to one side. "Sammy, no!"

Sam felt his chest tighten as he looked down at Dean's face. Tears slid from the corners of his brother's eyes.

"What'm s'pposed to do!?" Dean ground out, shaking his head.

He couldn't wait any longer. There were plants around that would help, he knew them – goldenrod and purple cone flowers had been used by the Native Americans for centuries as wound dressings to keep infection out or to kill it if wounds were already infected. Both would grow in the area, if he could find them.

"Dean, don't – don't – I'll be back, okay? As soon as I can," Sam told him, letting go of his brother's hand and pulling the blanket over him. "As soon as I can."

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><p>Dean was dreaming.<p>

_Sam sat up on the mattress, his face fallen in, eyes glittering in the sockets. _"Save me! Don't let me die, Dean! I got too many years ahead. Too much living to do!"

_Staring at him helplessly, Dean shook his head._

"Dad said, Dean, you had to save me. I didn't turn into a monster! I stayed myself! SAVE ME!"

_He lurched to his feet, blundering by feel from the room, his throat full and his vision blurred. Save your brother!_

_They didn't want Sam. They'd wanted him. The weak one. The one who couldn't face himself. He knelt at the crossroads, covering the box. They wanted him but he had to do it anyway, couldn't face burying his brother, burying everything he'd ever wanted or lived for. What were your dreams? What did you want? Nothing. He wasn't allowed. Didn't deserve anything. He'd failed._

_He ran toward a dark angel, whose hand was filled with a brilliantly glowing light. In the centre of the light a woman stood, little more than an outline. His legs slowed as he neared them, getting heavier and heavier until he could barely lift his feet from the ground. His lungs heaved in slow motion as he struggled to draw breath to scream. The light kept getting brighter, burning his eyes, burning his skin, burning the muscle from bone and the bones to ash. _

_The darkness swirled away, and his father stood, a few feet away. Not the man he'd loved but the essence of him, the roar of hellspawn bursting free and the roasting winds of Hell filling the graveyard, all forgotten as he looked at the man who'd shaped him. Smiling. _

Proud of you, son.

_Are you, he wondered? Do you know what I did? Where I'm going? His father's soul brightened and brightened, and was gone._

_He was in darkness again. He turned around and saw a house, a single window lit, through the trees. He began to walk toward it but it became a ship, a three masted clipper, disappearing into the fog banks. He floundered through the thick snow, a blizzard raging around him and he felt so cold, so tired. The flakes were hard, less flakes than chips of ice, stinging as they were whipped into his face. He fell to his knees, barely getting his hands out in front of him in time to break his fall as he pitched forward. The snow was melting and freezing around his body, so cold, the cold seeped into him, through his frozen skin, his heart beat was slowing, slowing._

_At their feet, the demon's blood was opening the stone floor and light was leaking out, argent and searing, burning through their eyes. His brother was standing there, eyes slitted against it, as if he couldn't move, what he'd done, what was happening, painted in shock on his face. Looking at him, he felt his heart breaking again, smothered mostly under the need to get out, to get them both out of there before the devil emerged from that widening spiral._

Don't you walk away from me. _His mother's voice, but it wasn't her, it couldn't be her, it was an illusion, wasn't it?_ I never loved you. You were my burden. I was shackled to you. Look what it got me.

_He stares at her, and inside he's shaking, shaking so hard he can't believe he's still on his feet. _

The worst was the smell. The pain, well. What can you say about your skin bubbling off? But the smell was so … you know, for a second I thought I'd left a pot roast burning in the oven. But … it was my meat. And then, finally, I was dead. The one silver lining was that at least I was away from you. Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam. You ever ask yourself why? Maybe it's not _them_. Maybe … it's you.

_That hadn't been real, he tried to tell himself, tried to turn away, tried to walk away. Not a nightmare but a memory. Distorted like the worst dreams he'd ever had but it'd been the angel, the angel making her say those things, making her look at him like that, her face sly and malicious and laughing at him._

_He couldn't feel the cold any longer. Couldn't hear the wind. Couldn't feel himself. A hand lifted him up. He was in a cabin, built of tightly chinked logs, and the blizzard howled outside. Inside it was warm and dry, a fire burning steadily in a home-made wood stove, the metal barrel glowing cherry red._

_He lay, wrapped in blankets, on a hunter's cot, a tanned skin stretched on a timber frame and fastened with rawhide. He could feel his fingers and toes tingling as the blood returned to them. A kerosene lantern hung from the rafters to one side of the cabin, shedding a golden light over the rough timbers and rag rugs that covered the wide floorboards._

_Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he tried to turn his head. A woman walked into view, lifting a heavy iron pot to the top of the stove. In the combination of firelight and the glow of the lantern, her hair was like burnished copper, held back in a long, plaited sheaf down her back._

"_Ellie," he croaked at her, his voice raw, powerless. But she heard him, turning to face him, kneeling in front of the cot. She looked the same, he thought, a shiver rattling through his frame as feeling returned._

_Her hand was warm on the side of his face. He closed his eyes, savouring that small touch._

"_Why'd you leave, Ellie?" he whispered to her. Everyone left. He'd thought – he'd hoped – this would be different. Hope was overrated. Hope was for everyone else. _

_She leaned toward him, her lips soft against his. Warmth cascaded through him, warmth and something else, something he'd looked for, for a long time. Something he'd thought wasn't for him. His eyes opened as the pressure disappeared, widening when she began to fade away, disappearing slowly._

"_No … no, don't go."_

_The cabin walls became transparent, the cabin vanishing from the floor to the roof in front of him._

"_No, _please_ don't … go."_

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><p>Dean rolled onto his side, rolling back immediately as the agony of his injuries sliced through him like a spear. He threw off the blankets, and the cool air chilled the sweat that covered his body. The bacteria that had entered him when the claws had punched in deep, multiplied and flourished and his immune system couldn't keep up with them, raising his body's temperature higher, trying to burn them out.<p>

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><p><em>He was sitting by a lake, the grass thick and lush around him. Above the sky was azure, a summer sky, radiant with sunshine. Behind him the woods crowded down, a narrow deer path showing the way he'd come. The water was deep, clear. He could see the jump of fish far out, near the other side. <em>

_There was a disturbance in the water ahead of him, and he watched as she walked out of the lake, water running in droplets from her skin, dripping from the ends of her hair. She walked toward him up the narrow pebbled beach, and knelt beside him, the light filtered through the canopy of the tree above dappling the creamy skin, shadowing her eyes. _

_Her body was smooth, unscarred, not the way he remembered it from life. The muscles were firm and defined, sliding smoothly as she moved, lying next to him, her eyes warm and inviting. He leaned over her, his hand moving lightly over her skin, and bent to press his lips against the long column of her throat, tasting the freshness of the lake water on it. Her hands slid under his shirt, running lightly over the curves and planes of his body, igniting desire as they moved._

"_Ellie." He lifted his head, looking into the jade green irises. "Why didn't you come back?"_

_She shook her head slightly, slipping her hand behind his neck and drawing his head down. The kiss held him close, filled with immeasurable comfort, a place to rest, a place to be himself, just Dean. Then it was gone, she was gone … his arms closing around nothing and the smell of brimstone filled his nostrils, hot wind and distant screams making him jerk upright._

How certain are you that what you brought back, is one hundred percent, pure, Sam? You of all people should know, that's what's dead, should stay dead_. The demon's eyes flashed yellow and he saw his brother's face, a glint of yellow, gleaming from the hazel eyes. _It's not something that you're doing, it's what you are! It means—

_NO! No. Yellow Eyes was dead. The Colt had destroyed that sonofabitch. Sam was Sam. His eyes widened as the graveyard disappeared and he saw the sky, boiling and seething clouds, tinged with a red that wasn't a colour, livid with the pain that filled them._

_Dean Winchester, gave up everything for his family and for what? Alastair stalked around the table, the razor's edge flashing red. Look – and tell me what you see?_

_Above him, the air split, showing a room, shadowy and cool, all the colours muted by the thick tendrils of rampant greenery forcing itself through the outer wall. He saw his brother … kneeling in front of a woman, long dark hair and her head thrown back as Sam drank from the cut in her wrist, her eyes open and black, corner to corner … standing in front of a demon, bound in a devil's trap, screaming as Sam's face screwed up with concentration and the black smoke spilled from the demon's mouth … no … two bodies, writhing together on the unmade bed in a derelict room, dim light gleaming on the sweat that soaked them … NO … the face of a woman, possessed with her eyes jet-black, laughing at Sam, his brother's shoulders slumping and the dark-haired woman ramming a thick, serrated knife blade between the demon's shoulders … NO!_

_No one cares about you anymore, Dean, Alastair's voice buzzed in his mind. No one remembers you or what you did. They don't feel your suffering. They've got other plans –_

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><p>Breath rasping heavily in the silent room, Dean's eyes opened for a moment, not registering the cabin's walls or bare raftered roof. Heat filled him, his mouth and throat parched, his tongue too thick. Under the dressings, the wounds throbbed and consciousness fled before the pain, taking him deep, taking him back to his nightmares.<p>

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><p><em>They were in an old hotel room, the night air steamy and hot. He lay beside her, aware of every breath, every movement she made, his body aching from the need to touch her, to kiss her, to hold and be held, a longing he couldn't admit to, couldn't understand. The sharp crack of a lightning strike startled him and he rolled to one side, landing on his hands and knees, the diner's tables filled with dead people, and the angel grovelling on the floor, stuffing raw meat into his mouth.<em>

I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it._ The Horseman was ancient, twisted and thin, trapped in the wheelchair. _But you just keep fighting. Just ... keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already ... dead.

_He wanted to deny it. Wanted to make a joke, turn those cold, avaricious eyes away from him, pretend the fucking thing hadn't said it, hadn't seen it. He couldn't do anything. Truth, his mind had said. It was the truth. He didn't know why he was still fighting. Didn't know why he was alive when so many others had died. Didn't know who he was or what he was supposed to do._

Let him go.

_His brother's voice filled the room and he turned, dread rising as he saw Sam standing there, powerful and strong and the Horseman telling him to take the demons, consume them, use them, to become stronger._

_No. No! This wasn't … around him, the demons exploded from their meatsuits, puddling on the floor in front of his brother. He couldn't move._

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><p>Outside the cabin, the clouds were thickening. Sam looked at the sky, one arm full of cut herbs and thought he had a bit longer before the storm would hit. Poultices, he decided, knife blade cutting through another handful of stems. He needed to break the fever before it cooked his brother's brain, and then keep the wounds clean and dressed until Dean's body could cope on its own.<p>

Dean groaned in the cot, feet kicking at the blanket that still covered them. He was burning up and pain rippled down his left side, from shoulder to groin, grinding into him.

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><p><em>Thunder rumbled in the distance as sullen clouds filled the sky. He stood by the window, watching the sheet lightning light up the night. Behind him, she stood, her arms around his waist, her cheek against his shoulder blade.<em>

"_It's just a storm," she said softly. "Come back to bed."_

_He turned in her arms, his hands going to her face, fingers tangling in her hair, breathing in her scent as deeply as he could. Somehow, without warning, without knowing how it'd happened, she'd become everything to him … partner, lover, friend, confidant … he couldn't breathe for wanting to tell her that, for wanting to keep her close. He'd been dead, empty and uncaring … and then he hadn't._

_She lifted her face to him, and desire rose, an arousal that burned, quick and hot, along his nerves, that shook through him in a disturbing mix of excitement and doubt, passion and anxiety, igniting his mind at the same time as it lit up his body. Covering her mouth with his own, he held her tightly, her response as wild and demanding as his. He ignored the part of him that insisted it couldn't be real, he didn't deserve it, he couldn't have what he wanted. _

_When he released her, slowly and reluctantly, she turned away, her hand catching his. Then she stopped. He saw her face pale with shock, eyes widening as she stared past his shoulder. Turning around unwillingly, he knew what he what he would see. _

_Raphael stood in the doorway, the archangel's dark eyes fixed on Ellie._

_Dean swung around, putting himself between them, his chest constricting with the knowledge that the archangel was going to kill her. He felt himself lifted into the air, flung as lightly as a doll across the room. The wall cracked where he struck it, his breath knocked out of him; he lay on the floor sucking air in as the light began to fill the room._

"_No!"_

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><p>"Easy, Dean." Sam put the cold damp cloth over Dean's forehead, holding his brother down as he thrashed weakly against the grip. "We're gonna take care of this right now."<p>

He cut away the sodden and stinking bandages covering the wounds, soaking the lower layers that were sticking to the open flesh. He'd mashed the purple cone flower root into a paste, and boiled the rest, making poultices with it and the goldenrod leaves and root to dress the wounds. He would have to change them every two hours, until the infection was gone.

The yellow matter came away with the lowest layer of bandage, and he threw it away, gagging slightly at the smell. The puckered holes were angry, swollen, foetid. Making several small incisions with the knife, boiled to sterility, in between them, Sam cut a long line across them, jaw clenched as his brother shuddered.

He began to clean out the wounds, the first aid kit's supply of cotton wool and gauze depleting as he soaked them in the bowl of hot water and irrigated, palpating the reddened area until the pus was gone, and the blood ran clear. Dean arched up involuntary as Sam sluiced the open flesh with alcohol, his muscles contracted to iron rigidity, his breath whistling through his clenched teeth. _The Winchester way_, Sam thought, closing off his emotional reactions to what he was doing and making sure that every inch was clean. Even unconscious, Dean wouldn't let a scream escape his control.

Smoothing on the paste, covering the edges, packing the centre, he looked through the open doorway to the other room. The kettle was boiling again, steam curling in a rising ghostly spiral toward the roof. The willow bark had been a bonus, the trees growing thickly along the stream's edge and he'd chopped the inner bark to make a tea. It wasn't as fast-acting as aspirin, but it worked the same way, breaking fever and reducing pain and inflammation.

He laid the hot poultice over the wounds, thumbing up his brother's eyelid to look at the pupil. It was still dilated, but not, he thought, as much. Wiping the sweat from his forehead as he finished, he rocked back on his heels and picked up the soiled dressings, getting tiredly to his feet to throw them onto the fire, washing his hands yet again, the scalding water drawing a grimace.

The bowl of chopped bark sat on the table and Sam tipped it into the kettle. He sat down, waiting for it to steep, listening unconsciously for any sound from the bedroom.

His brother had always had nightmares. In Sam's earliest memories, there were images, a little blurred now, but consistent. Dean thrashing around in his bed. Their father coming in, waking him, soothing and calming him. Or Jim. Or Bobby, later on. Dean had never told him about the dreams or what they'd contained, but mostly he'd been able to guess. He'd listened in the dark to the occasional mutterings and protests that Dean couldn't keep inside. He thought that the last couple of months had added new horrors to his brother's subconscious. New guilt. New fears.

Running his hands through his hair, he turned his thoughts to his plan. Dean wouldn't go for it, but somehow he was gonna have to make his brother understand. Understand that it was the only thing they could do. That it would take Armageddon out of the equation and keep the fight from going global. And that it would be his chance, his only chance, maybe, of making up for what he'd done, blindly and unknowingly, perhaps, but still … on him.

Ellie'd been right. The thought made him feel tired and old. He'd been bait for his brother to break the first seal, all the talk of being special had been a lie from the beginning. His real purpose had been to break the last seal, and he'd done it willingly, his choices building one on top of another, his pride leading him down a path to damnation and he hadn't even looked around to see where he was going – or to stop and consider what he thought he was doing. Saving the world? Even now he couldn't remember why he'd thought that.

He glanced at his watch as he tried to push those self-recriminations aside. The tea needed another few minutes.

If he could, by some miracle, convince Dean of the plan, it would leave his brother in the same limbo as he'd been left, when Dean's deal had come due. Alone. No family, no leads, nothing to do but feel his loss. Ellie had vanished. None of the hunters they knew and had kept up with had seen or heard from her and Cas had said she'd vanished from his sight as well, hidden, he'd thought, by other angels. Michael had been keeping a close watch on her, probably in the hopes that she'd lead him straight to Dean.

He'd been surprised when he'd found Dean in Cicero. Surprised that his brother had gone to see Lisa, even though he'd gone there himself, thinking he might. Dean hadn't talked of Lisa in two years. But he'd stopped talking about Ellie as well. Had looked angry the few times he'd mentioned her to him. He needed to know his brother was going to be … occupied, at the very least, when he went, he thought. Needed to know that Dean would have a home. A family. Something to fight for. Something to live for.

_It's not my life_. Dean'd told him what he'd said to Lisa when he'd come out of the pleasant suburban home. But it could be, Sam thought. Without the apocalypse, without interference from angels or demons … without the responsibility of protecting his brother, it could be his life, the life he'd wanted, the life he'd never thought he'd get. He wouldn't think of it, not on his own. He would be searching for a way to get into the cage and get him out, if he didn't have something else to go to.

The smell gradually infiltrated his senses and he stood up, going to the kettle and pouring out a cup of the clear liquid it contained. The smell was … unappetising, Sam decided, his nose wrinkling up involuntarily, but his brother had a strong stomach. He picked up the cup and walked into the bedroom.

"Dean." His hand closed lightly over his brother's right shoulder. "Come on, wake up, you need to drink this."

Eyelids fluttered, opening slowly. "Wh-what?"

"Just a drink, then you can sleep," Sam told him, shifting his position to slip an arm around him and help him into a half-sitting position. The tea had cooled enough, he hoped, holding the cup to his brother's dry and cracked lips. Dean drank it quickly, draining the cup and Sam let out his breath, watching his brother's expression twitch in belated distaste, his eyelids falling.

Easing him back down, Sam pulled the blankets over him again. In another hour, he'd have to change the poultices. He slid the damp pillow from beneath Dean's head, replacing it with a clean folded blanket. He could get a short rest, he thought, looking at the other roughly-built cot against the far wall.

Dean was a quick healer, and with the help of the herbs, his immune system would have a better chance now. In a couple of days, he would be able to travel. And then they would go to Bobby's, and he would try to figure out a way to tell Dean what he wanted to do.

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><p><strong>END<strong>


End file.
